In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out. ¹ 

he lived in ruined towns ¹  and in houses where ²  no one lives, where they are ready to crumble into heaps. ³ 

They will be desolate among desolate lands, and their cities will be among ruined cities.

They ¹  have destroyed our ²  vines; ³  they have turned our ⁴  fig trees into mere splinters. They have completely stripped off the bark ⁵  and thrown them aside; the ⁶  twigs are stripped bare. ⁷ 

But you are the ones who will be forced to leave! ¹  For this land is not secure! ²  Sin will thoroughly destroy it! ³ 

The Lord comes to pronounce judgment on the leaders of his people and their officials. He says, ¹  “It is you ²  who have ruined ³  the vineyard! ⁴  You have stashed in your houses what you have stolen from the poor. ⁵ 

Here is a message about Moab: Indeed, in a night it is devastated, Ar of Moab is destroyed! Indeed, in a night it is devastated, Kir of Moab is destroyed!

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; ¹  otherwise the skins burst and the wine is spilled out and the skins are destroyed. Instead they put new wine into new wineskins ²  and both are preserved.”

All this will happen because the Lord said, ¹  “The whole land will be desolate; however, I will not completely destroy it.

So by your knowledge the weak brother or sister, ¹  for whom Christ died, is destroyed. ² 

I said, ¹  “Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened? ²  Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it? ³  Why does the land lie in ruins? Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?”

In that day people will sing this taunt song to you – they will mock you with this lament: ¹  ‘We are completely destroyed; they sell off ²  the property of my people. How they remove it from me! ³  They assign our fields to the conqueror.’ ⁴ 

Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long ¹  will this man be a menace ²  to us? Release the people so that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not know ³  that Egypt is destroyed?”

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,

The destroyer will come against every town. Not one town will escape. The towns in the valley will be destroyed. The cities on the high plain will be laid waste. ¹  I, the Lord, have spoken! ² 

A ¹  second ²  angel ³  followed the first, ⁴  declaring: ⁵  “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great city! ⁶  She made all the nations ⁷  drink of the wine of her immoral passion.” ⁸ 

He ¹  shouted with a powerful voice: “Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great! She ²  has become a lair for demons, a haunt ³  for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detested beast. ⁴ 

Jerusalem certainly stumbles, Judah falls, for their words and their actions offend the Lord; ¹  they rebel against his royal authority. ² 

Wild animals will rest there, the ruined ¹  houses will be full of hyenas. ²  Ostriches will live there, wild goats will skip among the ruins. ³ 

Be distressed, ¹  farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.